Senators May Turn Down Compromise on Spending

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15—Senate leaders forecast today further controversy and possible rejection by the Senate of a compromise spending ceiling bill worked out by a Senate‐House conference committee and accepted by the Administration.

The question of whether to give the President budgetcutting authority to hold Federal spending to $250‐billion in the current fiscal year was emerging as the major issue blocking adjournment of the 92d Congress. It was also turning into a major test of power, with constitutional as well as political implications, between the Senate and the White House.

Congress failed to meet its target of adjourning last night despite concerted efforts by conferees of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to rush through last‐minute compromises on the spending ceiling and the welfare‐Social Security measures.

The efforts were blocked in the House by the lack of a quorum, which forced the House to recess until Tuesday, and in the Senate by the Democratic leadership, which does not want Congress to adjourn until it sees what President Nixon does with a water pollution bill now on his desk awaiting signature or a veto.

The leadership's hope is that Congress can adjourn by Tuesday or Wednesday, but this plan could be upset by renewed controversy in the Senate over the spending ceiling. While placing some restrictions on the President's budget‐cutting authority, the proposed compromise does not go far enough to satisfy many in the Senate who are protesting that Congress would be relinquishing its constitutional power over the purse strings.

The compromise is virtually certain to be adopted by the House, which last week approved a White House request that the President be given unlimited budget‐cutting authority to hold spending within a $250‐billion ceiling. But in the Senate, Mike Mansfield of Montana, the majority leader, predicted, “It will not go through easily, If it goes through at all.”

Calls It Unacceptable

Senator Mansfield in an Interview dismissed the compromise as unacceptable because “it just digs a little deeper into the constitutional prerogatives of Congress.”

In the Senate last week, a group of liberals, moderates and conservatives banded together to place restrictions, which were unacceptable to the Administration, on the President's authority to make reductions in the budget. The same coalition, which prevailed by a 46‐to‐28 vote, is expected to form again to oppose the compromise. A high Treasury official made clear that the compromise was regarded by the White House as acceptable and workable.

While the coalition is obviously in a commanding position on the basis of last week's vote, the outcome could well depend upon absenteeism in a Senate where many of the members have already left town in anticipation of adjournment.

If the compromise is rejected, Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, clearly indicated that it would be the death of the proposed spending ceiling, which has been offered as an amendment to priority legislation extending the temporary $465‐billion debt ceiling.

“If the Senate won't buy it [“the compromise], he said in an interview, “We can just forget it.”

Senator Long said he would support the compromise, which he argued “would only make legal what Presidents since Thomas Jefferson have done by usurpation” by impounding and not spending some of the funds appropriated by Congress.

Contending that it has come down to a question of priorities between deficit spending and fiscal stability, he said it was almost impossible to get Congress to cut the budget and therefore “maybe the time has come when we need a benevolent dictator, if only temporarily.”

The proposed compromise would set the $250‐billion ceiling on Federal spending in the current fiscal year—some $7‐billion less than estimated expenditures — but place broad restrictions on program reductions by the President.

Under the compromise, certain programs, such as military pay, veterans benefits, Social Security payments including Medicaid and Medicare, public assistance and judicial salaries, could not be cut. The President, however, would be authorized to cut up to 20 per cent in each of 50 broad functional categories such as national defense, international affairs and finance, pollution control and agriculture.

Social Programs

Within these categories, no restrictions would be placed on how much he could cut individual programs. However, some Senators are concerned that the President may reduce or eliminate social programs passed by Democratic Congresses and Administrations.

The Senate version had proposed that no program could be cut by more than 10 per cent—a level the Administration had protested was too low if the President was to bring spending down to the $250‐billion level. The compromise also dropped a key Senate provision requiring that the same proportional cut be merle in all programs.

The controversy over the spending ceiling now appears to have become linked with the President's action on the water pollution bill, which authorizes. $24.6‐billion in Federal assistance—four times more than proposed by the Administration—to end waterway pollution by 1985.

Mr. Nixon has until Tuesday midnight to sign the bill. If Congress adjourns before then, he could pocket‐veto the legislation without public explanation.

The Senate Democratic leadership believes that Congress will not adjourn until the Pres Iident gives assurances he will sign the bill or veto it in time for Congress to override his veto. Republican leaders are suggesting that he will not say what he will do on the water pollution bill until he sees how Congress acts on the spending ceiling.

One major casualty of the adjournment rush was legislation extending the Federal highway program. The bill died in a Senate‐House conference committee last night in an acrimonious dispute over whether money from the Federal Highway Trust Fund could be used for mass transit.

After four days of negotiations, the committee remained deadlocked, with House conferees insisting that the highway trust funds—financed by taxes on gasoline, tires and trucks—could be used only to build roads and the Senate members just as determined to use some of the money for mass transit.

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A version of this archives appears in print on October 16, 1972, on Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Senators May Turn Down Compromise on Spending. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe